Movies

A 'classic' film trilogy credited with 'saving the genre' and boasting an impressive ensemble cast has arrived on Netflix.2026 promises to be an eventful year for superhero cinema, with Marvel preparing their most significant release since Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Doomsday.Last week also witnessed the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) drop all eight episodes of Wonder Man on Disney+. Wonder Man chronicles Hollywood actor Simon Williams, who finds himself plunged into the superhero realm after acquiring abilities and transforming into a new hero.Led by Aquaman's Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in the lead role, the series features Sir Ben Kingsley's Trevor, a character previously seen in Iron Man 3 and Shang Chi.Before the Avengers return, audiences will flock to cinemas for Tom Holland's Spider...

A "highly underrated" comedy drama starring two Hollywood legends is streaming now in the UK. Heartburn (1986) tells the story of a marriage between New York writer Rachel Samstat (Meryl Streep) and political columnist Mark Forman (Jack Nicholson, whose relationship breaks down when "among other things, his infidelity becomes a problem they cannot overcome", the Netflix synopsis of the film reads.The film was directed and co-produced by Mike Nichols, from a screenplay by Nora Ephron, is based on her novel of the same name. It marked the only time Streep and Nicholson, both of whom have won multiple Academy Awards across their decades-long careers, have shared top billing in a feature film.One fan said: "The acting is superb by the whole cast and what could've become an over-dramatic fil...

The new war film is coming to Netflix (Image: Netflix) This article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn more A high-stakes war thriller is coming to Netflix very soon and fans are already comparing it to the Predator films.The new action film will star Reacher’s Alan Ritchson in a leading role, while Dennis Quaid, Stephan James and Jai Courtney are also in the cast. The military movie, entitled War Machine, will see soldiers face an “unimaginable threat”, which is teased in an explosive new trailer from Netflix. War Machine is directed by Patrick Hughes of The Hitman’s Bodyguard fame and also stars Esai Morales, Blake Richardson, Keiynan Lonsdale and Daniel Webber.The logline for the movie reads: “During the final stage of U.S. ...

People are being urged to check out the movie (Image: Getty)People are being urged to watch what’s being described as the “most underrated movie,” after viewers admitted it left them in floods of tears.Film fan Eccy Reviews, who regularly shares recommendations for new movies and TV series on social media, has claimed The Ballad of Wallis Island is a film audiences will return to time and time again.Available on NOW and Sky Cinema, the 2025 film follows “an eccentric lottery winner who lives alone on a remote island and tries to make his fantasies come true by getting his favourite musicians to perform at his home”.The movie is directed by James Griffiths and written by Tom Basden and Tim Key. Despite being overlooked by some viewers, it has been nominated for Best British Film at the B...

Netflix has just released a documentary that will captivate fans of the 2020 chess drama The Queen's Gambit.Queen of Chess chronicles the life of real-life chess champion and former child prodigy Judit Polgár, charting her journey to becoming a grandmaster in a male-dominated world, reports the Mirror.Similar to The Queen's Gambit, the new Netflix documentary examines Hungarian grandmaster Polgár's formative years as she trained from the age of five, alongside her sisters Susan and Sofia, to reach the pinnacle of the sport.Queen of Chess delves into Polgár's extraordinarily unconventional childhood shaped by her parents.Her father László, an educational psychologist, effectively treated his children as subjects in an experiment to demonstrate that "geniuses are made, not born" by enforc...

Jenny and Steve's romantic weekend goes sideways (Image: StudioCanal)What makes a film truly terrifying is personal. It might be gore or ghosts, depending on what gets under your skin, but for some, it's a British slasher flick where the monsters are hoodie-clad teenagers.In Eden Lake, a brutal horror film released on Halloween back in 2008, a couple head to a remote lake for what should have been a romantic weekend getaway. Steve (Michael Fassbender) is about to pop the question to his girlfriend, a nursery school teacher called Jenny (Kelly Reilly). Alas, their camping trip is interrupted by a psychopath, as played by Jack O'Connoll, and his group of sadistic youths. Its taut 90-minute runtime packs in so much violence that viewers have sworn off the film and its "pants-wetting terror...

Still from War and Peace, a 7-hour epic released in four installments between 1965 and 1967 (Image: Mosfilm)An iconic Soviet film is hailed as the most "underrated" war movie of all time with one of the "grandest" battle sequences you'll ever see. War and Peace was released in four installments between 1965 and 1967 based on Leo Tolstoy's seminal 1869 novel of the same.The sprawling epic is set between 1805 and 1820 and follows a romantic drama within the Russian aristocracy against the backdrop of war with France, and Napoleon’s invasion in 1812, a major turning point in the long-running Napoleonic Wars. The film was written and directed by Sergei Bondarchuk who also starred in the leading role of Pierre Bezukhov, alongside Vyacheslav Tikhonov and Ludmila Savelyeva, as Prince Andrei Bo...

A historical drama centring on Italian nuns has been captivating cinema enthusiasts – and it's screening on Film4 this evening. Benedetta, which premiered in 2021, chronicles a 17th-century nun who finds herself embroiled in an illicit same-sex romance, whilst her startling religious visions risk upending the Church's foundations.The production stars Virginie Efira in the title role and Daphne Patakia as Sister Bartolomea, under the direction of Robocop's director Paul Verhoeven. The narrative draws from the 1986 non-fiction work Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy by historian Judith C. Brown.The film is loosely inspired by Benedetta Carlini, a Tuscan mystic who professed to bear the stigmata (wounds mirroring those inflicted upon Christ during the Crucifixion...

Netflix adds 'awful' romance trilogy fans 'can't stop watching' (Image: UNIVERSAL PICTURES)Netflix is once more offering a beloved trilogy of films with dreadful Rotten Tomatoes scores that devotees simply cannot resist.Launching in 2015, this provocative romantic chronicle draws from a collection of novels that achieved worldwide success, shifting over 150 million copies.The opening instalment in the franchise managed merely 25 percent on RT, whilst the following two pictures performed even more poorly, both securing ratings of 11 percent.Regardless of the critical response, the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, encompassing Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, has evolved into lasting guilty indulgences that admirers cannot resist returning to.Adapted from the novels by EL James, t...

Judi Dench's acting earned her an Oscar nomination (Image: MIRAMAX) This article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn more Film fans looking for a captivating new period drama should try this one which is streaming on Sky, which has been praised by audiences. This comes after other viewers have enjoyed a TV series adapted from the works of a “superb” author, a “masterpiece” period crime drama and an “excellent” Shakespeare adaptation. The film has been lauded by many on IMDb and currently holds a 7.2/10 rating on the platform. One person praised the film in their 10/10 review and hailed it as a “strong” period drama and commended the lead star for another “brilliant characterisation”. They went on to say of that it was a “spright...